Game : Illuvium Arena
Platform : PC
Job title : Lead game designer
In Illuvium Arena, I designed multiple game modes that leveraged our core ruleset and character roster to deliver varied and engaging player experiences.
One of the most notable is Survival Mode—a game mode that originated under unusual circumstances but has since become a cornerstone of the Illuvium Arena experience.
Survival Mode is a strategic roguelite autobattler, where players build and upgrade a team of units to face an infinitely scaling enemy. The goal is to survive as long as possible before inevitable defeat. While primarily a PvE experience, Survival Mode also includes light PvP elements, allowing players to compete through daily challenges and global leaderboards.
Initial Design
Survival mode was born out of a need to get a playable version of the game into the hands of investors and players as quickly as possible. The PvP mode was facing delays on multiple fronts, and I had growing concerns about its timeline—concerns that proved valid, as it ultimately required another full year of development.
Internally, we couldn't properly playtest PvP, and balancing a mode with hundreds of characters would have added even more delays. To move forward, I championed the development of a PvE game mode. This approach bypassed the networking issues we were experiencing with PvP and significantly reduced the complexity of balance requirements.
Leadership was eager to ship something immediately, so I set out to design a game mode that could be delivered in under two months, with a roadmap to expand and refine it through updates over the following six months.
Live service
The initial release of the prototype was very well received, prompting us to shift from a limited-access window to keeping it playable indefinitely.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) showed strong retention among competitive players, signaling that the core gameplay was solid. Meanwhile, more casual players also enjoyed the experience but struggled with certain overly complex systems. Over the following months, we addressed this feedback—expanding the prototype toward something closer to our original vision (with necessary changes based on what we learned during prototyping).
We streamlined several core systems to reduce complexity, reworked the UI, and introduced both tutorials and an optional advanced UI mode to better serve different player types.
Although the game mode never reached its final intended form, its success prompted us to shift focus back to completing the PvP mode. Survival Mode remains a core experience for more casual players and serves as an excellent onboarding tool—offering a low-pressure way to learn without facing human opponents. It helped shape many of Illuvium Arena’s core systems and continues to be a foundational part of the game to this day.
Rapid prototyping
I began by designing the final game mode I ultimately wanted to build toward—a mode where players gradually construct and upgrade their team over time. Players would start with a small set of characters and, after each wave, choose from a set of upgrades to improve their deck. (Think Slay the Spire meets Teamfight Tactics.)
This “goal” design was complex, so I knew we had to take a staged, modular approach to prototyping. I created six variations of the game mode, beginning with a barebones version and incrementally adding features in each iteration. This allowed us to test individual systems in isolation while keeping development flexible and manageable.
Given the tight delivery timeline, I jumped straight into prototyping, collaborating with the programming team, UI, VFX, Character and backend, I created a strike team to build Survival whilst other teams could continue with other deliverables.
The first playable version was extremely minimal—it lacked most of the intended features but was functional enough to let us tune AI difficulty and test player progression.
Key mechanics included:
Units had a placement cost that scaled with their strength.
The AI had a power “budget” and randomly deployed as many units as it could afford each round.
The player had a fixed hand of cards, and while the cards themselves didn’t change, the number of points available to spend increased with each round.
This stripped-down prototype gave us valuable insights into pacing, difficulty scaling, and progression—all without needing to build the full system up front.
This approach allowed us to fine-tune the gameplay progression. In the early rounds, the player had a clear advantage, but the AI gradually became stronger, creating an increasing power gap. This made the game mode an excellent learning tool for new players: they were almost guaranteed a few early wins, but as the difficulty ramped up, they were encouraged to learn and adapt. For example, most new players could win up to round 3 or 4 without much strategy, but to reach rounds 5 or 6, they had to start understanding positioning. To progress even further, they needed to grasp synergy mechanics.
However, this also made the early rounds feel tedious for experienced players. To address this, I accelerated development of an interest system that rewarded players for winning while spending less. This significantly changed the early-game dynamics, keeping those initial rounds engaging for veterans. It was no longer just about winning—it became a question of how efficiently you could win.
